Bel canto

Bel canto (Italian for 'beautiful singing' / 'beautiful song', Italian: [ˈbɛl ˈkanto])—with several similar constructions (bellezze del canto, bell'arte del canto)—is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing.^[1]

The phrase was not associated with a "school" of singing until the middle of the 19th century, when writers in the early 1860s used it nostalgically to describe a manner of singing that had begun to wane around 1830.^[2] Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt [a] definition [of bel canto] until after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used to evoke a lost singing tradition.^[3]